


a faith that may not come

by pyrophane



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yu-Gi-Oh!, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-07 22:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11068617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/pseuds/pyrophane
Summary: “Tell me something,” Oikawa says. “Do you believe in the heart of the cards?”





	a faith that may not come

**Author's Note:**

> some kind of ygo/tcg fusion verse, originally posted [here](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10603282#cmt10603282) as part of saso br1, for the prompt: 'YGO AU - Oikawa and Hana are more alike than they might first think.' thank you to mandy for the perfect bait, i think i've reached peak self-indulgence??
> 
> (i feel that hana would actually play a mill or burn deck, but i love raidraptors, so.)

 

 

 

 

 

All of the lights in the waiting room at the far end of the corridor are switched off, but Hana’s assumption that it is as empty as it looks is swiftly hamstrung when her shin connects with something that lets out a pained yelp and she nearly leaps out of her own skin. “Ah! Sorry, I didn’t realise this room was occupied—”  
  
“Not to worry,” the former Duel King says, from where he’s partially wedged underneath a table, hunched over his deck. In the dark. Hana supposes duel royalty is allowed their eccentricities, and decides not to question it. “Plenty of space for us both!”  
  
In her manager’s notebook she has written: _Oikawa Tooru. Monarchs/Lightsworn, previously Red Dragon Archfiend, more recently D/D/D. Strengths: strategic plays → highly versatile combo player. Watch out for aggressive opening attacks. Note tendency to borrow other people’s decks during competitions (self-imposed challenge?). Weaknesses: ??? poor duel record against some beatdown decks (see Ushijima Wakatoshi)._  
  
She’s never seen him divested of the bright, fierce intensity of a duel before. Here in the dim hollow of the room he’s nearly overwhelmed by shadow, only a sliver of his face visible before he rises, spine uncurling with a glacial grace, moving into the funnel of light from the corridor at Hana’s back. “I won’t be disturbing your… preparation?” she says, dubiously.  
  
Oikawa hums. “My next match is against Tobio-chan,” he says, which is not as helpful of an answer as he seems to think it is, given that Hana has no idea who this _Tobio-chan_ could be. “But… hm!” he adds, tapping his cheek with a finger. “I’ve definitely seen you before.”  
  
“Uh… well, I’m the Johzenji manager,” Hana says. “So I’ve been to most of your matches—”  
  
He shakes his head. “Not _that._ I mean the Junior League National Championships. Weren’t you one of the quarterfinalists three years ago? Raidraptor deck, right?”  
  
She looks down. She runs a thumb along the teeth at the base of her jacket zip. “Yeah, that was—that was me.”  
  
“I’ve never played Raidraptors,” Oikawa says. “I’ve been meaning to try out some swarm decks—always wanted to take Blackwings for a test run, but my terrible and incredibly mean teammate won’t let me touch them, something about the _sanctity of Winged Beast decks._ ” He scrunches up his nose.  
  
The sanctity of Winged Beast decks. Hana thinks of her Raidraptors, tucked into a drawer she hasn’t opened in three years. Unable to face them but unable to give them up completely. The Junior League quarterfinals, the last match she’d ever played, ice crackling down her spine as she checked her hand and checked the field and knew with iron surety that there was no way forward, and so she let the timer run out on her turn and upon arriving home shoved her deck, unshuffled, into the corner of her desk’s second drawer and didn’t touch it again. She’s never looked at the card she would have drawn next, though she still could. She doesn’t think she will ever be able to stomach knowing what might have happened, had she stayed.  
  
“Raidraptors aren’t particularly competitive,” she says. “You’re better off sticking with what you already play.”  
  
“Well, of course you’d say that! We’re enemies, after all, you might be trying to sabotage me! Oh, well, even if Mattsun won’t let me play Winged Beasts I’d still like to duel against them. If you ever decide to play again, feel free to challenge me anytime!”  
  
“Thanks for the offer,” Hana says, “but I don’t—think I’ll go back to duelling.”  
  
If Oikawa picks up on the blatant hypocrisy of saying this while continuing to manage for a duel team, he doesn’t point it out. Instead, he tips his head back and to the side, the pale unbroken line of his throat gleaming. “Tell me something,” he says. “Do you believe in the heart of the cards?”  
  
Three years ago her answer would have been immediate, certain; if you loved something, if you devoted everything you had to it, surely it would love you back. Surely you would see the proof of what you’d given reflected, your faith reciprocated. “I don’t know,” she says, choosing her words carefully. The language of a manager, not the language of a duellist. “It doesn’t seem very likely.”  
  
A quick flash of teeth, humourless. “You’re right,” he says. “I guess we can’t all have destiny on our side!”  
  
Hana has been watching for weaknesses for three years; she knows vulnerability when she sees it. She should press her advantage or perhaps offer some kind of encouragement, manager to opponent, but knowing precisely when to act had always been her ultimate shortcoming as a duellist, and there’s a terrible sense of recognition rearing up in her. She’s fifteen with a dead hand and an empty field and she can’t bear to see the match through. She’s eighteen, in a room as far away from the duel arena as possible with an ex-Duel King sitting here in the dark alone instead of outside with his teammates, skirting around something she thinks they might share.  
  
Three years spent trying to approximate the feeling. Seeing that dropped match through. Hana shuts her eyes, and when she opens them again honesty comes more freely to her than it ever has with her own teammates. “But you’re—still here, aren’t you? You wouldn’t be if you didn’t think you could beat something as stupid as fate. Or anything like that.”  
  
That startles a laugh out of him. The moment is seaming up, the day outside encroaching on their space. And yet—she has seen him. They have seen each other. “I’m not very good at letting go,” he says, conspiratorial, like he’s imparting some grand secret. He shifts forward. “And neither are you, I think.”  
  
“No,” she says, careful again, but she’s surprised by how effortlessly the words come to her. “I’m not.” He shoulders her regard easily now. Acknowledged, and returned. No more and no less than what she’d given him.  
  
“Manager-san,” Oikawa says, at last. He smiles, gaze dropping to her hands, their duellist’s calluses long receded into sense memory but for the first time in three years Hana’s struck by yearning for the feeling of a card beneath her fingertips. Wholehearted faith, once again, in the unknowable. “I’ll see you around.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to drop by my [tumblr](http://delineative.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ennezahard)! this fic can be found on tumblr [here](http://delineative.tumblr.com/post/161717454330/fic-a-faith-that-may-not-come).


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